Canon PowerShot SD700 IS First Impressions Review

Front
From the front, users can see the perpetually curvy left side of the camera that is meant to make handling more comfortable and add some interest to the otherwise straight-edged model. The lens sits slightly to the right side and extends outward from the camera body with its polished silver rims. Above the left side of the lens is the optical viewfinder, which cuts into the outer decorative edge of the lens barrel. To its right is the AF illuminator that lights up orange for self-timing and low light assistance for the auto focus. To the top right of the lens is a built-in flash that could be problematic if fingers wander into the way. When set on its left side, the Canon PowerShot SD700 IS logo, which is on the perpetually curvaceous side, is right-side-up. When the camera is held normally, the text runs upward. Overall, the front is attractive and interesting with its curves and two different colors of silver.

Back
The back of the camera has a black panel on its left side. In it are the LCD, the optical viewfinder and the power button. The LCD takes up 2.5 inches of space, while the optical viewfinder above it hardly takes up a third of an inch. To the right of the tiny viewfinder are two LEDs to indicate when the flash is ready and when the card is reading and writing. To the right of the LEDs is the power button, which isn’t very intuitively placed. Most digital cameras have the power button located on the top, so to find the power button on the back is tough. Finding the black power button on the black panel isn’t very easy either. It blends in so well – until the camera is turned on. Once powered up, there is a green LED that lights up next to the power button.

The top right corner of the camera has a cheap plastic mode dial that sticks out the side. It has a few icons to represent different modes and it also has a tag mark to show where users should turn the dial to activate the modes.

Crammed near the bottom of the silver panel to the right of the LCD are the multi-selector and three buttons. The button above the multi-selector has a LED in its center and lights up when connected to a printer or computer. This is the Print/Share button. Below this is the multi-selector, which has arrows pointing in the four directions and also has icons and letters for the double features the multi-selector performs. The top portion of the multi-selector accesses the ISO settings in recording modes and deletes individual pictures in the playback mode. The right side accesses flash modes and the left side switches the focus mode from normal to macro and landscape. The bottom part of the selector cycles through the burst and self-timer modes. To the bottom left of the multi-selector is the Disp/Back button and to its right is the Menu button.

Left Side
The left side is completely featureless. All that can be seen from here is the silver panel on the front half of the camera and the black shiny panel on the back half, with a few screws holding them together.

Right Side
The right side of the Canon PowerShot SD700 IS, when facing the LCD, has a big eyelet in the center for easy wrist strap attachment. At the bottom of this side, the side of the battery compartment door can be seen. At the top of the right side is the flimsy door that opens to the DC and A/V / USB ports. The door has a tiny lip for slightly easier prying, but the lip is much smaller than anyone’s thumb.

Top
The tri-color design can be seen from the top, where the shiny black panel slants upward toward the left side and the matte silver body is highlighted with polished silver features. There are a few contours where the optical viewfinder sticks out the front of the body and where the flash protrudes just ever-so-slightly.

On the right side of the top is the shiny shutter release button which is surrounded by a zoom switch. The switch has a little bump in the front that is a bit hard to push around. This is for controlling the 4x zoom lens.

Bottom
The view from the bottom shows how slanted the two black and silver panels are. The black panel starts small on the left side and slants upward to about halfway up on the right side. Serial numbers and other info are included on the black panel. Slightly to the right half and directly below the lens is the standard quarter-inch tripod mount. The handgrip side is occupied by a battery compartment door that is a little tricky to open.